Our Story…
“We never wanted to own a gym”. It wasn't anything either Astrid or Amy had ever wanted to do and they certainly never wanted to be “personal trainers”. Astrid was a certified strength and conditioning coach at a renowned high school and Amy was a physical therapist at a hospital. Both were full time and successful in their respective careers. Their paths crossed at a gym and they became friends. Both Amy and Astrid were drawn more and more to this fitness community to the point where Amy came on staff as a personal trainer and coach and Astrid left her strength and conditioning job and became the head coach. They began shifting the culture of the gym towards sustainability and longevity as they found mutual passion in helping people move better and get out of pain. But then there was a global pandemic. A lot changed.
Amy and Astrid worked together through the pandemic to provide a virtual fitness base for their community with individual home workouts and programming and coaching zoom group exercise classes. They worked together to develop a curriculum for coaches that combined their respective backgrounds to equip coaches with a deeper knowledge and understanding of anatomy, movement, cues, programming and communication. And most importantly, they began to dream.
Astrid saw it first, “I want to own a gym with you.” Amy thought she was nuts. “What a cute idea.” But it was an idea that stuck. It came up over and over and took more and more shape until it wasn't a cute idea and became something they both wanted and were driven to make a reality. Fast forward almost a year later, Amy and Astrid found themselves unemployed and with no prospects for making this dream a reality.
The world was different after the pandemic, fitness was different. Lockdown was over, but gyms were still closing left and right and fitness was considered a high risk industry. Finance was different, the SBA was locking down on loaning money to fitness start ups. Real Estate was different, you couldn't talk to landlords, everything went through brokers with stringent criteria for who they would rent to. Two women with no business ownership experience, no collateral, no financial history, were not looked upon favorably.
Amy and Astrid were cold calling commercial spaces and knocking on doors to find a place to house their fitness community. Because Amy couldn't get the phone number right for the broker of a cute brick building with huge windows, they ended up in front of the landlord. They had doors slammed in their faces enough times to know that to have an audience with this man was a big deal and their chances of ending up in such a picture perfect space were slim. They left the initial tour of 715 N. Los Robles with starry eyes and heavy hearts knowing “they could never afford a space like that”. But the landlord had kindly agreed to look over their business plan and give them feedback to help them get access to other landlords in the future. After going over their business plan with him weeks later he insisted they could afford not only the suite at 715 but also the suite next door and handed them the keys on the spot. “Tell your people you have a space so you don’t lose anyone else and get going as quickly as you can.”
Five weeks later in an empty room lined with stall mats and some kettlebells and a dumbbell rack with dumbbells they started training. Their first morning class trained in the rosy glow of an epic sunrise. The rest is history…
